Planting Seeds

I was so excited and also nervous to go the choir school yesterday on the 3rd to step forth into the action component of our project. Once Amanda and I arrived, at St. Thomas Choir School (http://www.choirschool.org/) I was able to calm down somewhat after we set up and organized our materials. However, we both felt that it would have been beneficial if we could have observed Dr. Gilbert’s class prior to our actual lesson in order to have connected with the students more. Perhaps doing so would have also enabled us to better assess their attention span, interests, and behavior among other things. I think that showing the boys “The Meatrix” video (http://www.themeatrix.com/) was a great idea, which they really enjoyed. Many of them had seen the Matrix, so they were able to understand the spoof while also learning about farming practices and agriculture. After some communication through Diane and Amanda, we realized that there were parts of the video that we did not explain to the kids which may have come off as too violet (such as the de-beaking of chickens). It would have been great if we had more time to debrief about it afterwards, but it felt like the forty-five minutes flew by before we knew it. I think the homework assignment that we gave them to find sources nearby or near their parents’ homes since they are at boarding school was a great way to spread the message about local farms to the larger community. It seems like the school already tries to utilize some local foods at an organic store in the area, but it would even better if we could spread the word to all eight families to consider buying locally as well. Hopefully from our lesson, the boys will be able to explain to their parents not only why this is a good idea, but also the problems associated with factory farms that we discussed with them in class too. Overall I think the day was a huge success and I am eager to see the continued work that the boys will do.